Gerard Basset obituary

The hotelier and master sommelier Gerard Basset, who has died of cancer aged 61, not only was one of the world’s greatest authorities on wine, according to the chef Raymond Blanc, but changed perceptions of wine service worldwide, as well as introducing a more adventurous approach to wine drinking to the wider public through his Hotel du Vin luxury boutique chain.

The only person to have won the highly competitive UK, European and world sommelier competitions, he was the most successful sommelier of his, or any previous, generation, and was one of only three people ever to have qualified as both a master sommelier and a master of wine, the two top titles in the wine service industry.

More importantly, however, he directly influenced huge numbers of people involved in serving wine to the public. As the Hotel du Vin chain grew and hotels were opened in towns such as Harrogate, Tunbridge Wells and Birmingham, a growing number of sommeliers were introduced to his open-minded attitude. He told me during a conversation in around 2000: “I like to give my staff the freedom to express themselves and to learn. So they choose most of the wines they sell, just as the chefs choose the dishes they prepare.”

He had no time, either, for the traditional sommelier style of telling diners what they should be drinking. As he said in an interview in 2012: “You should ask plenty of questions. How can I help you choose a wine that’s right for you if I don’t know how much you want to spend, what you really like? Even if I think this pinot noir is the best wine for this dish, if you hate pinot noir you aren’t going to enjoy it.”

Gerard was an unlikely candidate for this kind of career. Born in the industrial city of St Étienne, to Marguerite (nee Conorton), a midwife, and Pierre-René Basset, a draughtsman, Gerard later said that his father failed to offer him any affection or recognition of his achievements as a child. Television was banned, and Gerard struggled to make friends because he felt unable to join in conversations with his classmates at the Lycée Albert Camus, in Firminy, in the south of the city.

He left school at 16, taking on a series of short-lived menial jobs. His only passions were cycling and the city’s football team, and it was a European quarter-final match between St Étienne and Liverpool at Anfield in 1977 that changed Gerard’s life. Aged 20, he crossed the Channel for the first time to watch it, and almost instantly decided to move to the UK.

With no qualifications and less than fluent English, Gerard was grateful to get a job washing dishes on the Isle of Man. He applied to be a trainee waiter at the Crown Hotel in Lyndhurst, Hampshire, but struggled with parts of the form he was asked to complete. Assuming that “What are your criminal convictions?” referred to his views of the judicial system, he replied, as he later wrote in his memoir: “It would be too long to explain.” Despite this, he was given the job, which eventually led to him becoming junior and then head sommelier at the nearby Chewton Glen country house hotel by 1988.

Two of his colleagues there were to play crucial roles for Gerard – Nina Howe, then a restaurant hostess, whom he would marry and work closely with over nearly 30 years, and Robin Hutson, the hotel manager, with whom, in 1994, he set up the Hotel du Vin chain.

Gerard’s childhood experiences helped to define the two aspects of his character that struck everyone who met him. First there was what Hutson called an almost “obsessive” drive to prove himself. After winning the UK (1989 and 1992) and European sommelier championships (1996), it took him six attempts to land the international title in 2010. In a competition that is held every three years, that meant nearly two decades of intense training, including sessions with a sports psychologist. Alongside these gladiatorial contests, he also studied for both an MBA in wine (2007) and an MSc in wine management (2017).

Despite his French roots and the strong Gallic accent he maintained throughout his life, Gerard developed strong ties to his adopted country. Indeed, he shocked the French organisers of the World Sommelier Competition by insisting on the playing of God Save the Queen rather than the Marseillaise. “I have a British passport,” he explained. He always championed wines from new and lesser-known regions, and examples that offered value for money. So when, after the sale of the Hotel du Vin chain to Malmaison in 2004, he and Nina opened a hotel of their own called Terravina in the New Forest, the bottles he was keenest on selling to his customers were priced at an affordable (for that market) £35-40.

In an epilogue to his forthcoming memoir, Tasting Victory, Gerard wrote: “My efforts to improve my wine knowledge and skills in order to serve other people, to choose wines that would take their meal to another level, to make them comfortable and give them a night – or a holiday – that they would remember for the rest of their lives, repaid me many, many times over.”

He was author of The Wine Experience (2007) and 30-Second Wine (2015) and contributed to many other wine books. As well as his sommelier titles, he received countless awards, including the Medal of St Étienne (1997), a special achievement award from the Academy of Food and Wine Service (2005) and Decanter magazine man of the year (2013). He was made OBE in 2011 and received the Ordre du Mérite Agricole from the French government in 2017.

Gerard is survived by Nina and their son, Romané.